The Pull of the Familiar, the Push of the Foreign

Both the Post and Times  had Sunday articles discussing the Asian American community in Atlanta. The Post had a map showing its recent growth, which was concentrated in certain areas.

What struck me was the likelihood that the concentration mostly reflected the choice of the immigrants, the desire to live in areas with people with whom you might share something.  (Since "Asian-American" covers some 20 countries or so, you might not be able to speak your neighbor's language, but presumably you might have neighbors more accepting of you than in a 95 percent white, or 95 percent black, community.)  

It's always hard to untangle the factors behind residential concentrations (I almost wrote "segregation" but concentration is the better term.)  All other things being equal, a person might decide where to live based on the likelihood of finding people with similar backgrounds, tastes, opinions, values, or based on the fear of having to deal with strangers. 

Then moving from the viewpoint of the person moving into a residence to the viewpoints of the potential neighbors you bring up other factors.  I'd venture that in most cases in today's America the weight of the emotion involved is heavier on the side of the mover, than on the side of the neighbors.

Back in the day we had "lily-white" areas, so someone moving in of a different race could cause the potential neighbors to have a lot of emotion.  I don't think we have "lily-white" areas much these days, so there's less emotion.  Where you get emotion is NIMBYism, questions of zoning in particular.

The Persistence of Folk Wisdom--Memes?

The current effort to vaccinate for Covid-19 has run into resistance, particularly among black Americans.  The conventional wisdom explains this by the past history of science mistreating blacks, in particular the Tuskegee experiment.

The participants in the study are all dead now, the last one dying 15 years ago.  The study itself ended in 1972.

Assuming the conventional wisdom is correct, the extent to which people have become aware of it, and the duration of the time since the ending is striking. I wonder if sociologists have studied the factors which account for this penetration of the public consciousness, particularly in comparison with other memes.

{Here's further discussion of the issue--perhaps the meme lives longer in the minds of the intellectuals than the lay person?]

Ebbs and Flows

One thing which seems to occur and recur is a pattern of ebbs and flows.  In this case I'm thinking about race. In the 1950's the emphasis was on integration, the idea that our American problems would be cured by ensuring that all legal barriers to full participation.  Hence, the emphasis on civil rights.  This was building on the program of the NAACP.  The Black Muslims, the Nation of Islam, was separatist.

In the 1960s and 70's with Stokely Carmichael  and other leaders the Black Power movement emerged, with Malcolm X contesting with Martin Luther King.  As I remember it the issue was partly at least whether whites could be trusted, or wehther blacks would do better by strengthening the black community.  It may have been a reaction to what happened to black teachers and other professionals during integration.

While these lines of division seem to an outsider like me to have blurred over the 50 years since, I think we can still see those impulses working today. And this post at Boston 1775 shows them working then--black Congregationalists establishing their own church.

The Erosion of Traditional {X}

 The Post magazine has an article: "How Religion Can Help Put Our Democracy Back Together".

It includes this sentence: "Meanwhile, another parallel collapse is unfolding: the erosion of the traditional norms that have sustained our democracy. "

It's the sort of statement which I see relatively often: modern trends are undermining/eroding something from the past.

It's true enough, but what's usually ignored is the building of the new.  For example, one thing going on now, about which I know nothing except it's gathering momentum and creating professionals, is the development of online games. What sort of norms are the participants in such games learning?  What's the culture which has developed?  How might those things carry over to public life.

Social Capital Equals the Dead Weight of the Past?

 In this century the term "social capital" has become popular.  (For some reason I can't embed the ngram viewer from Google, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)

The idea is that people accumulate relationships and knowledge which improve the functioning of society.  It's a positive term.  

The other side of the coin is seeing much the same phenomena as "the dead weight of the past", as Marx did in this quote. Or, as Lincoln wrote: " The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

One example from my lifetime: Germany and Japan recovered relatively quickly from the destruction of WWII partly because they had social captial.  Their people had knowledge, and they had institutions which could operate.  In the last century that was often compared with the situation in developing countries, where the people lacked the knowledge and the institutions.

However I can look at the other side of the same example: much of the social capital of pre-WWII Japan and Germany was useless or dangerous in the post-war situation.  They had to discard some and keep and exploit other aspects.

I think we're finding the same thing as we exploit algorithms in automation--the algorithms are based on past experience, so they reflect the past, both good and bad.  

The Competition for Attention

 Ezra Klein in his "Why We're Polarized" points out there's been a big increase in the competition for attention (my term). In the 1970's we had 3 TV networks plus PBS, a newspaper and a handful of magazines which provided political information.  And access to material published in the past was limited.

Now of course we have more networks, more channels, more social networks and almost everything written remains available.  Perhaps even more significant, the same explosion of channels has happened for ally and all interests one can imagine.  Consider the availability of porn, with every peculiar interest/fetish being served up in a way unimaginable back in the 1970's.  Consider the handcrafts, all the networks and organizations set up to serve knitters, weavers, etc. etc.  

Everything I've mentioned is competing for attention.  People don't have unlimited time and money to devote to everything which might be interesting, so they have to specialize.  In the case of political interests, that tends to mean more controversy--controversy sells.

Blacks as Central to American Popular Culture?

 Prof. Appiah writes a NYTimes review of Isabel Wilkerson's new book: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” I'll read the book because the concept is interesting, but I was struck in the review by this:

 The place of Black workers in the American economy is surely part of the racial story, and it’s notable that the word “capitalism” doesn’t appear in Wilkerson’s book. Low-status jobs are generally low-income jobs; both income and status matter. Nor can we turn to the caste model in explaining the centrality of Black people to American popular culture.

I'm working on a post on the differences in American society between 1950's of my youth and the 2020's of my old age, but I hadn't yet touched on that. 

It's true--I could probably count on both hands the number of blacks in the culture who seemed significant to me:

Jackie Robinson

James Baldwin

Nat King Cole

Thurgood Marshall 

By the end of the decade MLKing but not Malcolm X.

Sidney Poitier

no singers that I remember.

I expect an 18 year old me in today's world would have a much longer list of singers, actors, writers. etc.  

Part of the difference between then and now is blacks coming to the fore.  But it's also true that part of the difference is the decline of hierarchy/or the multiplication of niches. 

 

 

 

Women Wore Hats Too

 I think I've blogged about the photos showing men in the 1920's-1950s wearing hats.  It seemed to be universal, not an indicator of class.

In an attempt to be fair, I want to link to this tweet, with a photo showing 1920's women wore hats as well. Apparently the  gender difference was that women wore hats everywhere, but men only outdoors?

 

Aug 7, 1920 - William Hays, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and a delegation of Connecticut suffragists at Republican National Headquarters in New York City #100yearsago pic.twitter.com/FTAoinFuKY

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) August 8, 2020

 

Five People to Write a Times Article? (And the Past)

NYTimes has an article on how the Trump administration turned away from the coronavirus, deciding to push responsibility to the states and localities.  In part it reads to me as a hit piece on Dr. Birx, possibly with Kushner as one of the sources (he's barely mentioned, while she gets portrayed as unduly optimistic and trying to please her bosses).

But that's not really what struck me.  It's the question: how do the logistics of five people writing one article work?  Does one person do the draft and the others add comments and paragraphs?  Is it more collaborative or individualistic? 

And how did the Times (and other papers) get here?  Back when I started reading the paper (usually the Sunday version) in the 1950's there were very few bylines on articles.  Over the years they started to appear on a greater proportion of the articles until now there's hardly an article without at least one named author.

I think that's representative of a more general evolution in society: diminishing the importance and voice of institutions and raising the importance and voice of individuals.

Today's Kids Are Needy?

The Post has a piece by a two-profession couple with 8 and 12 year old daughters, on their struggles to handle home schooling while still doing their professions.  In order to minimize interruptions they designate one parent as the duty parent for the morning and the other one in the afternoon.  The kids are supposed to go to the duty parent for their questions and needs. 

One day (not a big sample) they did a spreadsheet showing how many times the daughters interrupted the duty parent's work. I found the graph of the results to be incredible.

I know when I was young, maybe 8, I'd get bored and nag at mom.  But that wouldn't last long--it wasn't tolerated and I'd find something to do or play with.  Now I wasn't being home schooled; I'd understand that makes a difference.  But still...

I suppose it's just an example of how child rearing has changed over 70 years--parents and children are much closer now.  I know that.  But it still strikes me in my gut as being needy.

A Sad Photo of Joyous Wedding

The Post had a picture of a wedding today, which I can't find online.  It was illustrating a Lisa Bonos story on a convergence of BLM and the wedding in Philadelphia.  All very joyous and feel-good, except when you look closely at the one photo of the wedding celebrants.

If I counted correctly there were 18 women and 7 men in the party.  I can make assumptions about the cause of the apparent gender imbalance, but whatever the reasons IMHO it casts a shadow on the event.

US Pandemic from 30,000 Feet

It seems to me the general pattern of the pandemic spread was:

• the first to become ill and those who spread the disease were the well-off.  By definition if you were traveling between China and Europe, or between Europe and the US, or China and the US, you had money and an upper-middle class or upper class lifestyle.  And those you gave the virus to likely shared those characteristics.
• but second to become ill were the parents and grandparents of the travellers, those in nursing homes and assisted living homes.  My assumption is that most people in such homes are from backgrounds with above-average incomes, even though Medicaid may cover care.
• the final tier of victims were the vulnerable, those in meat packing plants, those in congested areas living in crowded homes, immigrants and the poor.

This is just speculation; I hope I live to see some good social research on the subject. 

The Flu and Social Forces

The Covid-19 virus has caused us (starting with President Trump) to become more aware of the toll of the annual  outbreak of influenza.  I was vaguely aware the death toll was significant, but not the full scope of the impact.

I'd compare the flu and some social forces such as segregation, prejudice, changes in social mores.  Like the flu, we're vaguely aware of such forces,  but we only sporadically become really conscious of them. Like the flu, forces operate mostly below our level of consciousness.  Like the flu, some social forces there's a range of variation in the instances: most being minor and temporary but some being very serious.

Innovation as an Invasive Species/Infectious Disease

There's a lot of concern over inequality, over polarization of American society, etc.

In part I think we're having trouble with the advent of the Internet and of social media. I'd observe that in the past human society has taken time to adjust to innovation.  When railroads came along people were thrown into close contact with strangers in a new situation for extended periods of time.  It took time to develop norms and habits to deal with this, not to mention the need to standardize time keeping.

I'd suggest a good metaphor for innovation is to consider it an invasive species or a new infectious disease.  Initially the species or disease makes rapid inroads because humans don't have any developed immunity or there are no natural enemies..  Over time these develop.

I think this is true for society, as well.  Humans learn, eventually.  And they adjust, eventually.

Then and Now--IV Housing

One of the big differences between the 1950's and now is housing:  Here's an Atlantic article
on the issue:

"The typical new single-family house in the U.S. is twice the size of the average urban or suburban dwelling in the European Union—more than 2,000 square feet versus approximately 1,000 square feet. ... In the past half century, the number of bathrooms per person in America has doubled. “We went from two people per bathroom to one person per bathroom in the last 50 years,” says Jeff Tucker, an economist at Zillow."

Everyone has their own room and their own bathroom.

Then and Now--III

Determinants of Identity

In the 1950's in rural upstate New York:

• the most important identities were ethnic--Italian, Polish, etc. and religious: Catholic, Jew, Protestant.  There were the slang terms for each.  Catholicism was important, as my mother in particular had an inherited (Lutheran) suspicion of the church.  They gambled (bingo nights), they wanted their own schools, they were under control of the Pope, etc.  Mom may have been in the minority with these views, but they were strong, at least in the abstract if not when dealing face to face. One of my best friends was of East European extraction, his parents were immigrants, his father dying young, and Catholic.  Mom had no problems with that.
• I knew two Jews growing up (perhaps three, a son of a local family surnamed "Benjamin" was a playmate for a few early summers).  One was our family doctor, who I believe had emigrated from Germany before WWII; the other was the dealer who bought our hens and pullets, presumably for chicken soup in New York City.
• as for African-Americans, which we were careful to call "Negroes", not colored and not "n****r, because we were more enlightened than others, I'm sure I saw a handful on the streets of Binghamton (pop 80,000) but we had no interaction.  No blacks in the school, though I've a memory, possibly false or a dream, of someone enrolling for a few days when I was in high school. Don't know if that happened.  
• homosexuality was a subject not discussed, even more of a taboo than cancer was. It's possible some of my class (of about 40) were gay, but I never knew it then and haven't confirmed it now.  
• I think the bottomline is how high the wall of separation between me, a WASP, and these others was.  That lack of knowledge could create 

Now things are different--issues of religion and ethnicity seems antiquated. While I'm not good at making/keeping friendships, I've encountered enough people during my life to feel I know them, and could take my cue from Terence:  "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me."^[

• 
  

The Decline of the Triple Cities

The Times has an article  discussing the increasing concentration of innovative industries and a proposal to encourage more new centers.

There are about a dozen industries at the frontier of innovation. They include software and pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and data processing. Most of their workers have science or tech degrees. They invest heavily in research and development. While they account for only 3 percent of all jobs, they account for 6 percent of the country’s economic output.

A few cities have gained most of the jobs in these industries (Seattle, SF, San Diego, Boston, Silicon Valley)  while many cities have lost jobs.

The article has a map showing the gains and losses in thousands of jobs. My home area, known as the "Triple Cities" (i.e., Binghamton, Endicott, Johnson City) is one of the big losers according to the map, though I don't find the specific statistics.

When I was growing up, the cities had Endicott Johnson (shoes, long gone) as the leading employer, but IBM was second,  Link (producer of  the Link Trainer) was there.  Scintilla was in Sidney.

I believe none of these companies are left--IBM deserting its ancestral home for the greener pastures of Poughkeepsie and other sites.

I don't know what the major employers in the area are now--I suspect education and health.

Abundance Enables Variation in Height?

One of the things I'm recurrently intrigued by, and have commented on in this blog, is the photograph of masses of people who have the same appearance.  Usually these days the photo is of North Korean dancers or military performing in unison.  (In older days it was the Chinese military.) Everyone is the same height and much the same physiognomy, though I'll quickly stipulate to a native of the country, everyone looks different, an individual.

The explanation I've heard for such uniformity, particularly of heights, is that when there are environmental constraints the phenotype is restricted, and the full potential of the genotype is not realized. But in an environment of abundance genes can exert their full influence. That could be an explanation why Americans come in such a variety of shapes and sizes and North Koreans don't.

I wonder: height and perhaps weight are the most evident characteristics, but are there other characteristics which are limited by the environment?  Certainly we know that the society means Shakespeare's sister never wrote a play, but that's not quite what I'm looking at.  Just a thought.

The Mystery of California Deaths

Articles today in the Post and Times on a new study of trends in US death rates.

Much information, including this:


Note that while trends are terrible for the upper NE and eastern MW, California and Wyoming are going the other way with OR, NV, and NY not too bad. 

I'd like to know what's going on here, I skimmed quickly through the article and didn't pick up much.  Obesity and smoking are bad, recent immigrants and service industries are good. 

A guess--Asian and Hispanic immigrants might be particularly helpful.  But in the end it's a mystery.

The Unpopulated United States

When we go up to Rhinebeck, NY for the Sheep and Wool Festival, we usually take US15 to Harrisburg and either I-78 or I-81/84 to I-87.  Either way, but particularly the latter, leads through sparsely populated areas, but even the more populated areas don't seem particularly densely settled.  

According to this site some of the counties have less than 100 people per square mile.  Reminds me of James Carville's crack about Pennsylvania being Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. 

You can guess that all those sparsely settled counties vote Republican, then and now.